Karateka two-player

by: Charles Mangin

Publication date: 2018-08-10

Topics: karateka, apple ii, apple, disk, DSK, floppy, Jordan Mechner, Charles Mangin

Language: English

A two-player version of the classic Apple II game, Karateka by Jordan Mechner.

This version patched by Charles Mangin.

PLAYER 1 CONTROLS:

Q,A,Z to punch
W,S,X to kick
C,V to move/run
SPACE to go from standing to fighting stance and back.

PLAYER 2 CONTROLS:

N to kick
M to punch
< to move left

Thanks to Chris Torrence, for helping spelunk the game’s memory layout; to Antoine Vignau for his clean DSK crack and a patch to skip the intro and get right into fighting; 4AM for inspiration and helping test.

One of the first games I ever played on my family’s Apple IIe was the Jordan Mechner master work, Karateka. Fight the bad guys, save the princess – it’s a simple but classic formula. My brother and I would take turns making our way through Akuma’s fortress. Even then, we wanted a two player version.

Fast forward more than 30 years, and I’ve taught myself 6502 assembly after getting back into the Apple II, through the thriving community online. The idea of a two player version of Karateka came back to me while at KansasFest a couple of years ago. I noodled a little on it back then, getting distracted by finding the code that created the unique music in the game.

Long story short: I finally found the places in the game code that needed patching to allow a second player to control the enemies in the game, and create a functioning two player version of Karateka. The resulting patch is only 42 bytes long.

More information on this patch: http://retroconnector.com/karateka-two-player/